Staff Pick – Music I’m Thankful For: Coldplay

At the risk of sounding hipster-ish, I started listening to this little band when I got X&Y from my local library. It was summertime. We were on the outside porch. We were grilling out, or doing crafts outside as a family, or something. I put the CD on, and played it just loud enough over the stereo.

My dad asks, looking up from the burgers at hand, saying: “Who is this?”

I reply: “Oh, it’s a band called Coldplay. Yeah, I think they’re getting pretty big now.”

“I like them,” he says.

Yeah, I liked them too.

Little did I know, however, that I would end up loving them. I bought my own copy of X&Y shortly thereafter, and now I know it intimately, not unlike a close friend. Coldplay’s brought something to my life, which is amazing to think, because they are undeniably one of the biggest bands in the world right now. Despite this fact, they have a way of speaking to all of us fans on an individual level, don’t they?

I believe that there are a lot of cruddy, overproduced, half-assed tunes you’ll hear if you turn onto virtually any radio station. Then there’s Coldplay–not one of them. For that, I’m thankful.

I remember catching up on all the latest gossip of their newest album, and the single “Charlie Brown” got leaked in a live concert video. As one YouTube commenter put it: “This song is an atomic bomb of love and joy.” I couldn’t say it better myself, so here’s the music video.

And for every incredible, heart-racing, stadium-exploding anthem they have produced, they also have a little-known, slower, powerful little song, or two, on each of their albums. “Amsterdam” is one such song, off of their impeccable A Rush of Blood to the Head.

And finally, there’s “Speed of Sound,” the song which originally converted me to the blood of Coldplay fandom.